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Plains Potato
Plains Potato or “of the red soil of Guà”
This variety of potato is cultivated in alluvial soil of medium consistency, with a good calcareous content, typical of the “red soil of Guà” in the plains between the provinces of Vicenza, Padua and Verona, which confer the tuber skins with a typical “golden yellow” colour and a particularly pleasant and exquisite taste. The varieties cultivated include the Primura, which is the most widespread, the Agata, Vivaldi, Cicero, Monalisa, Liseta and the Alba, which provide ideal tubers for use as sliced potatoes and for all other uses. The tubers of this cultivation have an oval or oval-oblong shape, a golden yellow skin colour and a light yellow pulp colour. The skin is rather thin and resistant to greening and mechanical manipulations. The cooked pulp has a delicate taste and a fine grain, which is not very floury and is slightly humid.
Product Description
Potato growing in this area is considered quite advanced, due to the high levels of production of the tubers per hectare and the characteristics of quality, cleanliness and the culinary characteristics of the potatoes. Potato growers, in fact, use certified tuber seeds and techniques of cultivation that are regulated by specific integrated production regulations. All cultivation procedures from sewing to harvest are totally mechanised and the tubers are stored in refrigerated cells. The tubers, which have an average weight between 45 and 200 grams and a dry content ranging from 18% to 22%, are packaged according to criteria of calibre homogeneity (Ø 40-55 mm; Ø 55-70 mm) and are marketed in 1.5 to 5 kg sacks.
Area of Production
In Vicenza the plains potato is cultivated in the areas of the cities of Agugliaro, Alonte, Asigliano Veneto, Lonigo, Orgiano, Noventa Vicentina and Poiana Maggiore. The protection and value of this product is entrusted largely to the APPA, the Association of Potato Producers, whose operational home office is in Montagnana (Province of Padua), which unites cooperatives and individual farms and organises the production and harvest of about 600 thousand quintals of the product, also partially managing the marketing under the registered trademark of “Dorata”. The marketing of the potato is addressed to national markets, especially in the regions of Lombardy, Piedmont, Emilia Romagna and the central-north European countries such as Switzerland and Germany. Recognistion of the Protected Designation of Origin (P.D.O.) has been requested from the EU for the “Golden Potato from the Red Soil of Guà”
Some plains area producers have obtained certification from the “Land of Palladio” Consortium in order to benefit the product and guarantee its origin.
TECHNICAL CARD
- Botanical name: Solanum tuberosum sub. Tuberopsum.
- Family: Solanacee.
- Period of production: it is sewn in the plains at the end of February and the first two weeks of March. In
mountainous areas, it is sewn in the month of April. The harvest in the plains depend whether the cultivation is early or not, between the second decade of July and the first half of August. In
mountainous areas the harvest is moved up to the end of August for the precocious varieties and to the months of September and October for the late varieties.
- Nutritional properties: the potato is a tuber that has a content of calories ranging from 85 kilocalories for steam-cooked potatoes, to 148 kilocalories for roasted potatoes and 188 kilocalories for fried
potatoes. The fundamental
characteristic of the potato is its starch content, amounting to 16 grams per kilo, and the content in sugar reducers, which must not normally exceed 1%. The rich starch content makes the potato
extremely digestible and therefore
particularly indicated for the diet of sick and elderly persons.
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